n't send me away so quickly," she pleaded. "I've not been telling
the exact truth. I came only partly because I feared you were
suspecting me. The real reason was that--that I couldn't stay away any
longer. I know you're not in the least interested in me----"

She was watching him narrowly for signs of contradiction. She hoped
she had not watched in vain.

"Why should you be?" she went on. "But ever since you opened my eyes
and set me to thinking, I can do nothing but think about the things you
have said to me, and long to come to you and ask you questions and hear
more."

Victor was staring hard into the wall of foliage. His face was set.
She thought she had never seen anything so resolute, so repelling as
the curve of his long jaw bone.

"I'll go now," she said, making a pretended move toward rising.

"I've no right to annoy you."

He stood up abruptly, without looking at her. "Yes, you'd better go,"
he said curtly.

She quivered--and it was with a pang of genuine pain.

His gaze was not so far from her as it seemed. For he must have noted
her expression, since he said hurriedly: "I beg your pardon. It isn't
that I mean to be rude. I--I--it is best that I do not see you."

She sank back in the chair with a sigh. "And I--I know that I ought to
keep away from you. But--I can't. It's too strong for me."

He looked at her slowly. "I have made up my mind to put you out of my
head," he said. "And I shall."

"Don't!" she cried. "Victor--don't!"

He sat again, rested his forearms upon the table, leaned toward her.
"Look at me," he said.

She slowly lifted her gaze to his, met it steadily. "I thought so,
Victor," she said tenderly. "I knew I couldn't care so much unless you
cared at least a little ."

"Do I?" said he. "I don't know. I doubt if either of us is in love
with the other. Certainly, you are not the sort of woman I could
love--deeply love. What I feel for you is the sort of thing that
passes. It is violent while it lasts, but it passes."

"I don't care!" cried she recklessly. "Whatever it is I want it!"

He shook his head resolutely. "No," he said. "You don't want it, and
I don't want it. I know the kind of life you've mapped out for
yourself--as far as women of your class map out anything. It's the only
kind of life possible to you. And it's of a kind with which I could,
and would, have nothing to do."

"Why do you say that?" protested she. "You could make of me wh